Reviews Zarek05

Zarek turns out to be a nice little label, releasing CD’s by Perlonex (the band behind…) aswell as various duets by members of Perlonex with others. One such is the CD by Ignaz Schick, the electronica guy from Perlonex, and Andrea Neumann, who plays the inside of a piano by preparing it and using it an electronical way. The two have recorded six pieces in multitrack form, which left them the possibility to mix the material afterwards. They work with clicks, buzzes, hiss and acoustic sound (even when it’s hard to recognize a piano in there for instance) and arrive at a more abstract improv record then usually. Schick and Neumann move cleverly through the entire spectrum of sound: from rather harsh (like the first half ‘Petit VI’) to sublte movements, sometimes even within one track (like the very nice ‘Petit III’). Very fine CD of improvised abstract electronica.

Frans de Waard, Vityl Weekly

Arid, abstract, cerebral. These are three adjectives that will probably pop in your head if you ever listen to Ignaz Schick and Andrea Neumann’s CD Petit Pale. They both follow an artistic path that takes them somewhere between British free improv, German electronic-based improv and electroacoustics. This 45-minute album was recorded “live” in the studio. Schick performs on live electronics, Neumann plays “inside-piano” — what it translates to is uncertain, as all sounds heard seem to derive from electronic sources. A few piano strings are hit at the beginning of “Petit I”; otherwise the listener is left guessing — she must be responsible for the occasional bursts of metallic sounds shaped like a human gesture. Glitches, low-fi electronics, and noise come together nicely and the first two tracks show good interaction between the players. The listening pleasure is marred by poor sound quality. Some of the hiss comes from Schick’s set-up and might even be intentional, but the CD has been mastered at a very low volume, which makes it all the more difficult to listen too. As noisy as this music can get (“Petit VI” recalls Merzbow’s work), the unsuspecting listener will go through the disc for the first time without clearly hearing a single sound. Petit Pale is presented as a work-in-progress, a photograph taken in August 2000 of a musical relationship that keeps on growing. We’ll have to wait for a second picture to see how the child is doing.

Francois Couture, All-Music Guide

Schick carries that attention to detail to his duet with Andrea Neumann. Neumann plays “inside-piano”, which I’ve heard described essentially as “piano guts.” Her bio describes it slightly more elegantly as “a rudimental and fragmented piano, which is reduced to its corpse with only the strings remaining, being prepared and manipulated with a huge variety of objects.” Whatever it’s nature; it gives Neumann a huge arsenal of sounds to work with. The duo have a powerful control over dynamics; Schick’s electronics can set up low drones, or interject with bursts of white noise, while Neumann strings together chains of repeated sounds, or explores the resonance of her “piano”. The duo’s strength lies in their manipulation of velocity. They explore a wide array of densities that are often quickly destabilized. “Petit I” goes from tense and quiet to wild and discordant within a matter of minutes, while “Petit III” verges on inaudibility. It doesn’t stay quiet for long though, with Schick and Neumann slowly building the tension and creating a dramatic climax. They’re two extraordinarily responsive musicians, whose sensitivity towards detail and pacing make “Petit Pale” a record that’ll reward future listening.

Nirav Soni, Ink 19

“Petit pale” sees Schick’s live-electronics combines with Andrea Neumann’s inside-piano for their collaboration. Neumann prepares and plays the piano, presumably by hitting, scraping and plucking inside it. While basically recorded live, there was some post-production work, but without losing the spontaneity. Schick produces squeals, crackles, white noises, sine waves beeps and wooshes, while plinks, wirescrapes, tapping and vibrations would appear to come from the piano. There are 6 parts to the work. Each is a complex shifting work, balancing the two components – the electronica seems to have the upper hand, but that could be due to some treatments being somewhat similar. “Petit I” for instance starts as an active interchange before shifting into a long whistly wave period, ending with buzzy crinkles. A soft pulsing opens “Petit II” squeaking drifting around, banging and plucking from the piano (is the high pitch note the piano too?), building up to active percussive plucking, fading down again. There is a long slow buildup to an full couple of final minutes in “III”, and the high activity level is maintained in the short “IV” combining percussion with swirly buzzing electronica. In “V” the two components work well in parallel: Schick slowly developing a whitenoise whoosh into a high tone which alternates with an aggressive buzz, while Neumann plays lightly around the inside of the piano. And finally “Petit VI” which opens with extensive squealing spacey electro, developing into a deep tone and then a rapid pulse before some obvious piano comes in, with another more complex ending. This is a complex album, made more so by not really being ablt to tell which is Schick and which Neumann: I am sure that some of the electronica is the prepared piano, which means the balance may be more even than I thought. Generally toward the edgy side, it is not really background fare, but as with the other two releases from Zarek, is fascinatingly intense, balancing longer somewhat ambient periods with active interplay. So, as a conclusion, three interesting improv albums which deliver diverse works. The two collaborations, together with the group release, create a tri-counterpoint reflecting aspects of each other back on themselves enhancing your appreciation. All are based on working within subtle and dynamic soundspaces, intense and exciting, and very rewarding.

Ampersand Etcetera, Australia

Ignaz Schick has surprised me with every new release of late, becoming increasingly prolific in the areas of new improvisation and electroacoustic music (see his work with Perlonex, reviewed above, or his many other projects available from his own Zangi Music organisation). Petit Pale sees Schick perform in collaboration with Andrea Neumann, who is a new name for me. Neumann had studied classical piano before turning to develop her own innovative performance techniques. Through her collaborations with Phosphor (of which Schick is also a member), Rananax and Annette Krebs, she has become an emerging figure in improvisation and electroacoustic circles, and justifiably so. For this session (recorded live on 8-track without overdubs or editing) Neumann performs on a prepared and electronically treated inside-piano, while Schick performs on live electronics. The two components complement each other well; Schick’s subtle tones and electronic textures, at times barely audible, create a fragile soundspace with which Neumann’s scrapings and surprising sounds are arranged. You never quite know what to expect while listening; quiet movements are interrupted by a sudden clanging or a surface scraping, but still they keep things charged, subdued and subtle, only occasionally moving into more harsh textures. In all, an excellent new release of electroacoustic improv.

Vils Santo, Incursion Music Review, Canada:

Ignaz Schick has surprised me with every new release of late, becoming increasingly prolific in the areas of new improvisation and electroacoustic music (see his work with Perlonex, reviewed above, or his many other projects available from his own Zangi Music organisation). Petit Pale sees Schick perform in collaboration with Andrea Neumann, who is a new name for me. Neumann had studied classical piano before turning to develop her own innovative performance techniques. Through her collaborations with Phosphor (of which Schick is also a member), Rananax and Annette Krebs, she has become an emerging figure in improvisation and electroacoustic circles, and justifiably so. For this session (recorded live on 8-track without overdubs or editing) Neumann performs on a prepared and electronically treated inside-piano, while Schick performs on live electronics. The two components complement each other well; Schick’s subtle tones and electronic textures, at times barely audible, create a fragile soundspace with which Neumann’s scrapings and surprising sounds are arranged. You never quite know what to expect while listening; quiet movements are interrupted by a sudden clanging or a surface scraping, but still they keep things charged, subdued and subtle, only occasionally moving into more harsh textures. In all, an excellent new release of electroacoustic improv.

Electro-acoustic instruments have massively modified the improv world over the past half-decade. While some musicians have stayed clear of synthesizers, turntables, PowerBooks and other sorts of electronic manipulation, others — especially in Europe — have adopted these gizmos wholeheartedly. We’re now at a point where with what and how an individual creates is becoming less important than the end result.
Much more fascinating is that finally — like there are with acoustic instruments — different styles and techniques have been developed to create with electronics. The four discs here, for instance, all have an electronic component. But like comparing the tenor saxophone playing of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, it would be difficult to confuse the electronic-acoustic imagination of any one of these musicians with any other.
That ultimate sound pinpoints the difference between Tom & Gerry’s excitable hullabaloo and the collaboration between German synthesizer player Ignaz Schick and inside-piano stylist Andrea Neumann. An electronics fundamentalist, Schick works in other electro-acoustic configurations like Perlonex, as well in Phosphor with Neuman, a former classical pianist, who excels on prepared and electronically treated piano. This duo CD appears to be an attempt to create as near soundless an aural field as possible. Suggesting tones rather than playing them, Neumann often appears to be performing a near-noiseless autopsy on the guts of the piano. Only rarely can you discern her sounding a couple of keys, running her hand over the strings, or plucking one. Similarly, Schick seems to prefer an aural concept that resembles sine wave flatlining. Rumbles, static, whooshes, whines, plinks and clicks are also prominent, or at least as prominent as anything designed to be noiseless can appear.
Seemingly operating on top of a sonic groundcover continuously decorated with electronic whooshes, repeated keyboard notes and what sounds like a toy xylophone being hit or the air being let out of a balloon occasionally surface. Interaction finally foregrounds on “Petit VI”, the final track, with radio tuning static giving way to musically-oriented up and down movements, which accelerates from slow near soundlessness to speedy white noise characterized by crackles, buzzes and electronic rumbles.

Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly, USA

The six tracks on Petit Pale feature Schick and Andrea Neumann playing her custom-build ‘inside piano’, which of course sounds nothing like a piano whatsoever. It’s pretty difficult to work out who’s playing what when Schick’s Jam Man delay unit starts piling up samples and generating feedback cycles of crackles and hums. Edwin Pouncey«s observations on Neumann’s Charhizma album, Rotophormen, with Annette Krebs (The Wire 205) apply equally well here: both musicians seem to be as happy as kids in a sandpit scrabbling around in their “electronic minimalist rubble”. It’s engrossing stuff even if it seems to lack the poise that Beins brings to the proceedings.

Dan Warburton, The Wire, UK

At first it seemed like the house had been swallowed by an windless gale, the eighteen-by-twenty-four solar panels methodically unbolting themselves from the roof and shimmying across the shingles. In reality, it was the Petit Pale CD (Zarek) by Ignaz Schick and Andrea Neumann. In a different arena (pre-op disinfectant scrub-down, for instance), Schick’s “live-electronics” reveal he’d use a Water-Pik. Neumann performs “inside-piano”, but if you told me she was on the fire escape playing a mandolin with fishhooks and bobbers, I’d say, “Invite her in for an apŽretif”. The pair are quite a team: hand-cranked periscopes upset pacific, elongated electro-skreemp with rusty buttinsky outbursts, whereas meadowlarks and coypus joust on chlorinated mercury beds (weapon of choice: hollow nun-chucks).

Static murmur, background noises, normal have I expect somewhere a piano. Andrea Neumann has had an education for classic piano. ButÉ. The previous electro acoustic CD’s wear mostly reviewed by Brother Kris. And some of them where very interesting albums. This one is only boring.